Alexander Afenyo-Markin
The Minority in Parliament has accused the Chief Executive Officer of Ghana Gold Board (GoldBod), Sammy Gyamfi, of attempting to take credit for the economic gains associated with the Domestic Gold Purchase Programme (DGPP) while distancing the institution from the financial losses reportedly incurred under the programme.
The Minority said GoldBod could not claim responsibility for positive developments such as the appreciation of the cedi, increased foreign exchange reserves and declining inflation while describing itself as merely an agent when the programme’s losses were brought into question.
“An institution that claims authorship of the benefits cannot describe itself as a passive agent when the costs are counted,” the Minority Leader, Alexander Afenyo-Markin, said in a statement issued yesterday evening.
The statement was issued in response to comments by Mr. Gyamfi at the Government Accountability Series earlier, following a Minority press conference the previous day on the financial and operational performance of GoldBod and reported losses under the DGPP.
The Minority said Sammy Gyamfi’s response had failed to dispute the US$1.7 billion, equivalent to about GH¢22 billion, loss under the DGPP in 2025, as cited in the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) Sixth Country Report on Ghana.
According to the Minority, the GoldBod CEO had only disputed responsibility for the loss rather than the existence of the loss itself.
“The GoldBod’s statement this morning confirms more than it rebuts. First, the loss is admitted. The Chief Executive Officer does not dispute the IMF’s finding that there is a loss of US$1.7 billion (GH¢22 billion) under the Domestic Gold Purchase Programme in 2025. He disputes only who should be blamed,” it stated.
The Minority maintained that regardless of which state institution’s balance sheet carried the loss, it remained a loss to the Republic and therefore had to be accounted for.
The caucus also challenged GoldBod’s reported operational surplus of GH¢907 million, arguing that the figure needed to be considered alongside the fees the institution received from the programme.
The Minority said Mr. Gyamfi had disclosed that GoldBod accounted for about GH¢133 billion in advances during 2025 and received an assay fee of 0.258 percent and a service fee of 0.5 percent.
Based on those figures, it estimated that GoldBod earned about GH¢1 billion in fees from the programme.
The Minority argued that the reported GH¢907 million operational surplus was therefore smaller than the fee income received from a programme which, according to the IMF, resulted in a GH¢22 billion loss to the state.
“The plain implication of his own numbers is that the operational surplus he is celebrating is smaller than the fee income he collected from a programme that cost the state GH¢22 billion,” the statement said.
It further argued that without the agency fees, there would be no significant operational surplus to celebrate, and accused the GoldBod CEO of failing to address that issue in his response.
The Minority also questioned the changing arrangements for financing the Ghana Accelerated National Reserve Accumulation Programme (GANRAP).
It said Sammy Gyamfi’s account showed that responsibility for financing the implementation of GANRAP had shifted from the Bank of Ghana to the Ministry of Finance in July 2026, while GoldBod was seeking to raise funds independently from August.
The Minority described the changes as evidence of an unsettled financing model.
“Three funding arrangements in six months is not a settled model. We view this with curious eyes,” it said.
The Minority further insisted that the GH¢22 billion loss, contained in the IMF’s Sixth Country Report, should be treated as a financial loss to the Republic and fully accounted for.
It also criticised the GoldBod boss over his reference to a “brothel” in his response to the Minority’s concerns, describing the remark as inappropriate for a public officer responding to questions about public finances.
“The Chief Executive’s reference to a brothel does not belong in a statement issued by a Public Officer accounting for public funds. Ghanaians asked for figures. They were given insults. The figures are outstanding,” the Minority Leader said.
The Minority maintained that the central issue remained the financial accountability of the gold purchase programme, and called for clear explanations of the reported losses, fees and financing arrangements.
It said the GoldBod CEO’s response had not adequately addressed those concerns, and insisted that the reported loss to the state must be accounted for.
By Ernest Kofi Adu